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WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: Every PowerPoint presentation is composed of a series of slides. To begin creating a slide show, you'll need to know the basics of working with slides. You'll need to feel comfortable with tasks such as inserting a new slide, changing the layout of a slide, arranging existing slides, changing the slide view, and adding notes to a slide. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about slide basics in PowerPoint. UNDERSTANDING SLIDES AND SLIDE LAYOUTS When you insert a new slide, it will usually have placeholders to show you where content will be placed. Slides have different layouts for placeholders, depending on the type of information you want to include. Whenever you create a new slide, you'll need to choose a slide layout that fits your content. Different slide layouts - www.office.com/setup Placeholders can contain different types of content, including text, images, and videos. Many placeholders have thumbnail icons you can click to add specific types of content. In the example below, the slide has placeholders for the title and content. A slide with empty placeholders - www.office.com/setup TO INSERT A NEW SLIDE: Whenever you start a new presentation, it will contain one slide with the Title Slide layout. You can insert as many slides as you need from a variety of layouts. From the Home tab, click the bottom half of the New Slide command. Clicking the bottom half of the New Slide command - www.office.com/setup Choose the desired slide layout from the menu that appears. Choosing a slide layout - www.office.com/setup The new slide will appear. Click any placeholder and begin typing to add text. You can also click an icon to add other types of content, such as a picture or a chart. The new slide - - www.office.com/setup To change the layout of an existing slide, click the Layout command, then choose the desired layout. Applying a new layout to a

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: Every PowerPoint presentation is composed of a series of slides. To begin creating a slide show, you'll need to know the basics of working with slides. You'll need to feel comfortable with tasks such as inserting a new slide, changing the layout of a slide, arranging existing slides, changing the slide view, and adding notes to a slide. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about slide basics in PowerPoint. UNDERSTANDING SLIDES AND SLIDE LAYOUTS When you insert a new slide, it will usually have placeholders to show you where content will be placed. Slides have different layouts for placeholders, depending on the type of information you want to include. Whenever you create a new slide, you'll need to choose a slide layout that fits your content. Different slide layouts - www.office.com/setup Placeholders can contain different types of content, including text, images, and videos. Many placeholders have thumbnail icons you can click to add specific types of content. In the example below, the slide has placeholders for the title and content. A slide with empty placeholders - www.office.com/setup TO INSERT A NEW SLIDE: Whenever you start a new presentation, it will contain one slide with the Title Slide layout. You can insert as many slides as you need from a variety of layouts. From the Home tab, click the bottom half of the New Slide command. Clicking the bottom half of the New Slide command - www.office.com/setup Choose the desired slide layout from the menu that appears. Choosing a slide layout - www.office.com/setup The new slide will appear. Click any placeholder and begin typing to add text. You can also click an icon to add other types of content, such as a picture or a chart. The new slide - - www.office.com/setup To change the layout of an existing slide, click the Layout command, then choose the desired layout. Applying a new layout to a

SmartArt allows you to communicate information with graphics instead of just using text. There are a variety of styles to choose from, which you can use to illustrate different types of ideas. Watch the video below to learn more about working with SmartArt. TO INSERT A SMARTART GRAPHIC: Select the slide where you want the SmartArt graphic to appear. From the Insert tab, select the SmartArt command in the Illustrations group. selecting the SmartArt command on the Insert tab - www.office.com/setup A dialog box will appear. Select a category on the left, choose the desired SmartArt graphic, then click OK. choosing a SmartArt graphic - www.office.com/setup The SmartArt graphic will appear on the current slide. the inserted smartart - www.office.com/setup You can also click the Insert a SmartArt Graphic command in a placeholder to add SmartArt. Inserting a SmartArt Graphic from a placeholder - www.office.com/setup TO ADD TEXT TO A SMARTART GRAPHIC: Select the SmartArt graphic. The text pane will appear to the left Enter text next to each bullet in the text pane. The text will appear in the corresponding shape. It will be resized automatically to fit inside the shape. adding text to the SmartArt graphic - www.office.com/setup You can also add text by clicking the desired shape and then typing. This works well if you only need to add text to a few shapes. However, for more complex SmartArt graphics, working in the text pane is often quicker and easier. adding text directly in the shapes of the SmartArt instead of the text pane - www.office.com/setup TO REORDER, ADD, AND DELETE SHAPES: It's easy to add new shapes, change their order, and even delete shapes from your SmartArt graphic. You can do all of this in the text pane, and it's a lot like creating an outline with a multilevel list. For more information on multilevel lists, you may want to review our Lists lesson. To demote a shape, select the desired bullet, then press the Tab key. The bullet will move to the

Today's post was written by Jacob Guttman, IT Manager, Menchies It's hard to believe it when you look at our rapid growth, but Menchies is still a very young company. We were founded in 2007 with a single store in Valley Village, California. Now, we have more than 300 franchise locations around the world. Maintaining connections between Menchies headquarters, the franchise community, and our guests is critical to our success. In the past, we used hosted services for email, collaboration, and document management. And we used a separate, Java-based application for instant messaging. One of the most persistent challenges I faced was trying to support our company's growth with a set of applications that weren't tightly linked together and that didn't fit the day-to-day work needs of our employees. An increasing number of our employees want to be able to access email and other applications on a range of different devices, including their smartphone or tablet. Ultimately, they want to be able to connect with colleagues and seamlessly move information between applications without having to think much about the underlying technology. When we started looking at moving to a new productivity and collaboration solution, the major factors influencing our decision were ease of use, anywhere access, simplified administration, and cost-effective scalability. As we took a closer look at Microsoft Office 365, it was the obvious choice. And, with help from our partner Cal Net Technology Group, we were able to make the switch to Office 365 quickly and easily. With Office 365, we get online access to all of the capabilities we need-email, calendaring, document management, and unified communications-all rolled into one solution. And it automatically works together with the Microsoft Office tools that our employees use every day. One great example of how Office 365 supports the business needs of Menchies and fits the way our people like to work is through our use of Micro

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: By default, every row and column of a new workbook is set to the same height and width. Excel allows you to modify column width and row height in different ways, including wrapping text and merging cells. Optional: Download our practice workbook. Watch the video below to learn more about modifying columns, rows, and cells. TO MODIFY COLUMN WIDTH: In our example below, column C is too narrow to display all of the content in these cells. We can make all of this content visible by changing the width of column C. Position the mouse over the column line in the column heading so the cursor becomes a double arrow. positioning the mouse over the column line - www.office.com/setup Click and drag the mouse to increase or decrease the column width. increasing the column width - www.office.com/setup Release the mouse. The column width will be changed. the resized column - www.office.com/setup With numerical data, the cell will display pound signs (#######) if the column is too narrow. Simply increase the column width to make the data visible. TO AUTOFIT COLUMN WIDTH: The AutoFit feature will allow you to set a column's width to fit its content automatically. Position the mouse over the column line in the column heading so the cursor becomes a double arrow. autofitting the column width - www.office.com/setup Double-click the mouse. The column width will be changed automatically to fit the content. the autofit column width - www.office.com/setup You can also AutoFit the width for several columns at the same time. Simply select the columns you want to AutoFit, then select the AutoFit Column Width command from the Format drop-down menu on the Home tab. This method can also be used for row height. autofitting column width for multiple columns - www.office.com/setup TO MODIFY ROW HEIGHT: Position the cursor over the row line so the cursor becomes a double arrow. hovering over a <a href=row line - www.of

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Today marks the general availability of Office 2016 for Windows, a suite of desktop applications that together with new mobile and web apps pushes Microsoft's new vision for PC-based productivity. Office 2016 is available immediately to Office 365 subscribers, as well as to individuals who would prefer to buy the software in standalone form. "We see Office 2016 as being just as important as the first release of Office," Microsoft group program manager Shawn Villaron told me in a briefing last week. "In the early days, Office was about bringing really important tools together to empower the individual for personal productivity. That was the way people wanted to work at that time. And for 20 to 30 years, Office fit right in. Today, things are changing. More people collaborate on work as groups and teams, so Office 2016 represents the change from personal productivity to team productivity." And that, really, is Office 2016 in a nutshell. If you're a typical information worker, student, or other person in need of standard productivity tools, Office 2016 of course works fine and represents an obvious and stable evolution from the Office version you're currently using. But the real meat in this release-now and going forward, as Office will of course be updated regularly, like Windows 10-is the designed around this new way of working. Confusing matters somewhat, Office-not Office 2016, but Office generally-is all over the place now. In addition to the classic, full-featured desktop suites on both Windows and Mac, Microsoft has high-quality Office Online web apps, mobile apps for Android, iOS, and Windows/Windows phones-and Office 365-specific solutions that are often available as web apps but are sometimes just integrated into the desktop applications. This ain't your father's Office anymore. Office everywhere: Microsoft Office is available on virtually any device you care to use. - www.office.com/setup Office eve

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: After creating a form, you might want to modify its appearance. Formatting your forms can help make your database look consistent and professional. Some formatting changes can even make your forms easier to use. With the formatting tools in Access, you can customize your forms to look exactly the way you want. In this lesson, you will learn how to add command buttons, modify form layouts, add logos and other images, and change form colors and fonts. Throughout this tutorial, we will be using a sample database. If you would like to follow along, you'll need to download our Access 2016 sample database. You will need to have Access 2016 installed on your computer in order to open the example. Watch the video below to learn more about formatting forms in Access. FORMATTING FORMS Access offers several options that let you make your forms look exactly the way you want. While some of these options-like command buttons-are unique to forms, others may be familiar to you. COMMAND BUTTONS If you want to create a way for users of your form to quickly perform specific actions and tasks, consider adding command buttons. When you create a command button, you specify an action for it to carry out when clicked. By including commands for common tasks right in your form, you're making the form easier to use. Access offers many different types of command buttons, but they can be divided into a few main categories: Record Navigation command buttons, which allow users to move among the records in your database Record Operation command buttons, which let users do things like save and print a record Form Operation command buttons, which allow users to quickly open or close a form, print the current form, and perform other actions Report Operation command buttons, which offer users a quick way to do things like preview or mail a report from the current record TO ADD A COMMAND BUTTON TO A FORM: In Form Layou

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Tables are another tool you can use to display information in PowerPoint. A table is a grid of cells arranged in rows and columns. Tables are useful for various tasks, including presenting text information and numerical data. You can even customize tables to fit your presentation. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about inserting tables in PowerPoint. TO INSERT A TABLE: From the Insert tab, click the Table command. Hover the mouse over the grid of squares to select the desired number of columns and rows in the table. In our example, we'll insert a table with six rows and six columns (6x6). inserting a table - www.office.com/setup The table will appear on the currently selected slide. In our example, that's slide 3. Click anywhere in the table, and begin typing to add text. You can also use the Tab key or the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the table. adding text to a new table - www.office.com/setup You can also insert a table by clicking the Insert Table command in a placeholder. inserting a table from a placeholder - www.office.com/setup MODIFYING TABLES PowerPoint includes several options for customizing tables, including moving and resizing, as well as adding rows and columns. TO MOVE A TABLE: Click and drag the edge of a table to move it to a new location on a slide. moving a table - www.office.com/setup TO RESIZE A TABLE: Click and drag the sizing handles until the table is the desired size. resizing a table - www.office.com/setup TO ADD A ROW OR COLUMN: Click a cell adjacent to the location where you want to add a row or column. In our example, we'll select the cell that says Mystery. selecting a cell - www.office.com/setup Click the Layout tab on the right side of the Ribbon. Locate the Rows & Columns group. If you want to insert a new row, select either Insert Above or Insert Below. If you want to insert a new column, select either Insert Left or Insert Ri

www.office.com/setup Blogs: PowerPoint allows you to insert a video onto a slide and play it during your presentation. This is a great way to make your presentation more engaging for your audience. You can even edit the video within PowerPoint and customize its appearance. For example, you can trim the video's length, add a fade in, and much more. Optional: Download our practice presentation. Watch the video below to learn more about inserting videos in PowerPoint. TO INSERT A VIDEO FROM A FILE: In our example, we'll insert a video from a file saved locally on our computer. If you'd like to work along with our example, right-click this link to our example video and save it to your computer. From the Insert tab, click the Video drop-down arrow, then select Video on My PC. Inserting a video from a file - www.office.com/setup Locate and select the desired video file, then click Insert. Selecting a video to insert - www.office.com/setup The video will be added to the slide. The inserted video - www.office.com/setup With the Screen Recording feature on the Insert tab, you can create a video of anything you are doing on your computer and insert it into a slide. the Screen Recording button on the Insert tab - www.office.com/setup TO INSERT AN ONLINE VIDEO: Some websites-like YouTube-allow you to embed videos into your slides. An embedded video will still be hosted on its original website, meaning the video itself won't be added to your file. Embedding can be a convenient way to reduce the file size of your presentation, but you'll also need to be connected to the Internet for the video to play. Inserting an online video - www.office.com/setup WORKING WITH VIDEOS TO PREVIEW A VIDEO: Click a video to select it. Click the Play/Pause button below the video. The video will begin playing, and the timeline next to the Play/Pause button will advance. The Play/Pause button and the timeline - www.office.com/setup To jump to a different part of the video, click anywhe

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: CHANGING YOUR DEFAULT SETTINGS IN WORD www.office.com/setup Blogs: There may be certain settings in Word that get on your nerves, like default settings that you find yourself changing over and over-the paragraph spacing, the font size-each time you start a new document. Maybe you prefer a different font style instead of the default Calibri. Maybe you like all of your documents to have narrower margins so you can fit more information on the page. Maybe you even work for a company that has very specific document standards-regarding the color scheme or layout-and you're tired of changing these settings every time. Luckily, you can customize many of the default settings in Word. You just have to know where to look. USING SET AS DEFAULT You can't change the default settings for everything in Word, but there are certain tools and features that give you this option. Popular examples include: Font Paragraph spacing Line spacing Margins Page orientation To find out if you can customize the default settings for a certain element, look for an arrow in the bottom-right corner of the group. This will open a dialog box where you can access all of the basic settings, plus some more advanced ones that you won't find on the Ribbon. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup Next, look for a button near the bottom of the dialog box that says Set as Default. All you have to do is click this button, and Word will assign your current settings-like the font or font size you've chosen-as the new default for this particular element. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup Finally, Word will ask whether you want to set this as the default for this document only, or for all documents based on the Normal template (in other words, all documents in the future). Choose the second option, and Word will use these settings from now on. Screenshot of Microsoft Word - www.office.com/setup If you don't have a lot of experience with

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: A chart is a tool you can use to communicate data graphically. Including a chart in a presentation allows your audience to see the meaning behind the numbers, which makes it easy to visualize comparisons and trends. Optional: Download our practice presentation for this lesson. Watch the video below to learn more about using charts in PowerPoint. TYPES OF CHARTS PowerPoint has several types of charts, allowing you to choose the one that best fits your data. In order to use charts effectively, you'll need to understand how different charts are used. Click the arrows in the slideshow below to learn more about the types of charts in PowerPoint. Slide 1 - www.office.com/setupPowerPoint has a variety of chart types, each with its own advantages. Click the arrows to see some of the different types of charts available in PowerPoint. Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup IDENTIFYING THE PARTS OF A CHART In addition to chart types, you'll need to understand how to read a chart. Charts contain several different elements-or parts-that can help you interpret data. Click the buttons in the interactive below to learn about the different parts of a chart. Book sales chart - www.office.com/setup LEGEND The legend identifies which data series each color on the chart represents. In this example, the legend identifies the different months in the chart. INSERTING CHARTS PowerPoint uses a spreadsheet as a placeholder for entering chart data, much like Excel. The process of entering data is fairly simple, but if you are unfamiliar with Excel you might want to review our Excel 2016 Cell Basics lesson. TO INSERT A CHART: Select the Insert tab, then click the Chart command in the Illustrations group. - www.office.com/setup A dialog box will appear. Select a category from the left pane, an

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: If you need to share information from your database with someone but don't want that person actually working with your database, consider creating a report. Reports allow you to organize and present your data in a reader-friendly, visually appealing format. Access makes it easy to create and customize a report using data from any query or table in your database. In this lesson, you will learn how to create, modify, and print reports. Throughout this tutorial, we will be using a sample database. If you would like to follow along, you'll need to download our Access 2016 sample database. You will need to have Access 2016 installed on your computer in order to open the example. Watch the video below to learn more about creating reports. TO CREATE A REPORT: Reports give you the ability to present components of your database in an easy-to-read, printable format. Access lets you create reports from both tables and queries. Open the table or query you want to use in your report. We want to print a list of cookies we've sold, so we'll open the Cookies Sold query. The Cookies Sold query - www.office.com/setup Select the Create tab on the Ribbon. Locate the Reports group, then click the Report command. Clicking the Report command - www.office.com/setup Access will create a new report based on your object. It's likely that some of your data will be located on the other side of the page break. To fix this, resize your fields. Simply select a field, then click and drag its edge until the field is the desired size. Repeat with additional fields until all of your fields fit. Resizing fields in the report - www.office.com/setup To save your report, click the Save command on the Quick Access Toolbar. When prompted, type a name for your report, then click OK. Saving and naming the report - www.office.com/setup Just like tables and queries, reports can be sorted and filtered. Simply right-click the field you w

www.office.com/setup Blogs: New to Visio? This tutorial will help get you started with Visio 2016. We'll take you through starter diagrams to give you an idea of what diagrams look like. Then we'll take you through the four basic steps to creating your own diagram. START VISIO Click the Start button, type Visio, and then click the Visio icon to open the program. (If Visio is open already, clickFile > New.) LOOK AT THE STARTER DIAGRAMS Before you dig in and start making things yourself, let's show you a couple starter diagrams that Visio has made for you. That way you can get an idea of what diagrams look and feel like in the program. Click Categories. Categories link - www.office.com/setup Click Flowchart. Flowchart category thumbnail - www.office.com/setup Now pay attention to this step: single-click the Basic Flowchart thumbnail. Basic Flowchart thumbnail - www.office.com/setup Let's explain what this dialog is all about. Visio Basic Flowchart thumbnails: 1 blank template, and 3 starter diagrams - www.office.com/setup You choose the blank template when you have some experience with Visio (like after you've made a few practice diagrams). But if you don't have any experience, choose one of the other three starter diagrams. Double-click one of the starter diagram thumbnails. This is a starter diagram. Visio 2016 comes with many starter diagrams to give you ideas and examples. You can customize this starter diagram by typing your own text, adding your own shapes, and so on. Also, take a look at the tips and tricks. These help you work with the diagram. Let's open another starter diagram. Click File > New > Categories > Network. Single-click the Basic Network thumbnail. Basic Network thumbnail - www.office.com/setup Double-click one of the two starter diagram thumbnails. This is just another example of what you can do with Visio. On your own, go to File > New > Categories and explore the various starter diagrams in Visio. Not all diagrams have them, but many of the

With Google Apps and Office 365 revolutionizing the way people work, you may feel that Microsoft Office is quickly becoming a dated product that will soon be packed away to the back of the closet. But with the 2016 version set to launch in autumn of this year, Microsoft is looking to change your mind. Now they're adapting their classic Office package for today's modern workforce. Here are four of the new features that are reinventing the way you look at your Office applications. CLOUD FOCUS FOR OUTLOOK ATTACHMENTS Microsoft knows that sharing attachments amongst co-workers and teams can be a hassle. With many collaborators still sharing documents and files the old fashioned way - attaching it to an email and then sending to others - it's easy for users to get confused and send an incorrect or outdated version. To solve this problem, Microsoft is gently nudging us to use the cloud. Now when you add an attachment to an email, you're now asked if you'd also like to share a link to a file on your OneDrive, OneDrive for Business or SharePoint account. SHOWCASING EASY WAYS TO USE OFFICE BETTER If you're like most people, you probably aren't using Office to its full potential. And who can blame you? Between Word, Excel, PowerPoint and more, there are literally hundreds of features and tools you can use - if only you had the time to discover them all. To help you get the most out of Office, Microsoft has now added a Tell Me box in the top center of your program title bar. This tool gives you an easy way to get questions answered. For example, if you want to project your desktop screen to a second monitor or create a graph in Excel, simply type your question into the Tell Me box and Microsoft will find the answers that most closely fit your search criteria. SWAY Look out PowerPoint, here comes Sway - the new, hipper Office application that makes creating fluid, stylish presentations easy. With Sway, you can now gather content from various source

WWW.OFFICE.COM/SETUP BLOGS: INTRODUCTION www.office.com/setup Blogs: Microsoft Access is a database creation and management program. To understand Access, you must first understand databases. In this lesson, you will learn about databases and how they are used. You will familiarize yourself with the differences between data management in Microsoft Access and Microsoft Excel. Finally, you will get a look ahead at the rest of the Access tutorial. Watch the video below to learn more about databases in Access. WHAT IS A DATABASE? A database is a collection of data that is stored in a computer system. Databases allow their users to enter, access, and analyze their data quickly and easily. They're such a useful tool that you see them all the time. Ever waited while a doctor's receptionist entered your personal information into a computer, or watched a store employee use a computer to see whether an item was in stock? If so, then you've seen a database in action. The easiest way to understand a database is to think of it as a collection of lists. Think about one of the databases we mentioned above: the database of patient information at a doctor's office. What lists are contained in a database like this? To start with, there's a list of patients' names. Then there's a list of past appointments, a list with medical history for each patient, a list of contact information, and so on. This is true of all databases, from the simplest to the most complex. For instance, if you like to bake you might decide to keep a database containing the types of cookies you know how to make and the friends you give these cookies to. This is one of the simplest databases imaginable. It contains two lists: a list of your friends, and a list of cookies. An illustration of two lists - www.office.com/setup However, if you were a professional baker, you would have many more lists to keep track of: a list of customers, a list of products sold, a list of prices, a list of orders, and so on.

www.office.com/setup Blogs: Office 2016 isn't just about new Microsoft Word and PowerPoint layouts. The new productivity suite has a ton of amazing new tricks and features that are designed to make your work (and play) a lot easier. If you still think of Office as something you tinkered with to write terms papers back on Windows 95, well you're in for a treat. Download the new Office 2016 and you'll get access to tools that automatically separate important and unimportant emails, connect to your social media accounts to help you plan your weekend, and help you plan group trips and activities. For the business user, there are a ton of new Office features that help you better communicate, collaborate and create. I'll walk you through some of these new features and how you can use them to improve your Office 2016 experience. 1. CLUTTER Our SPAM folders are amazing. They collect emails from retailers and businesses with whom we don't want to have any contact whatsoever. But what about that uncle you just can't stand? Or that annoying coworker who constantly asks you to go to lunch? With Clutter for Outlook, your email usage signals whether or not emails should actually enter your inbox. For example: if you never, ever open your uncle's emails, Clutter will automatically send those incoming messages to a folder where they will land alongside your annoying coworker's lunch requests. You can access this folder anytime and move messages back to the normal old inbox. If you're worried you'll miss something important, don't fret. Clutter sends you a weekly digest that tells you exactly what was hidden. You can then command Clutter to never pull in that type of content again. 2. SKYPE INTEGRATION Office 2016 - www.office.com/setup Office 2016 Microsoft has made cloud document collaboration possible (years and years after Google, but I digress). Now, you and a friend can edit a Microsoft Word document simultaneously without having to save and share the document via emai

A chart is a tool you can use to communicate data graphically. Including a chart in a presentation allows your audience to see the meaning behind the numbers, which makes it easy to visualize comparisons and trends. Optional: Download our practice presentation for this lesson. Watch the video below to learn more about using charts in PowerPoint. TYPES OF CHARTS PowerPoint has several types of charts, allowing you to choose the one that best fits your data. In order to use charts effectively, you'll need to understand how different charts are used. Click the arrows in the slideshow below to learn more about the types of charts in PowerPoint. Slide 1 - www.office.com/setupPowerPoint has a variety of chart types, each with its own advantages. Click the arrows to see some of the different types of charts available in PowerPoint. Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup Slide 1 - www.office.com/setup IDENTIFYING THE PARTS OF A CHART In addition to chart types, you'll need to understand how to read a chart. Charts contain several different elements-or parts-that can help you interpret data. Click the buttons in the interactive below to learn about the different parts of a chart. Book sales chart - www.office.com/setup LEGEND The legend identifies which data series each color on the chart represents. In this example, the legend identifies the different months in the chart. INSERTING CHARTS PowerPoint uses a spreadsheet as a placeholder for entering chart data, much like Excel. The process of entering data is fairly simple, but if you are unfamiliar with Excel you might want to review our Excel 2016 Cell Basics lesson.

Today marks the general availability of Office 2016 for Windows, a suite of desktop applications that together with new mobile and web apps pushes Microsoft's new vision for PC-based productivity. Office 2016 is available immediately to Office 365 subscribers, as well as to individuals who would prefer to buy the software in standalone form. "We see Office 2016 as being just as important as the first release of Office," Microsoft group program manager Shawn Villaron told me in a briefing last week. "In the early days, Office was about bringing really important tools together to empower the individual for personal productivity. That was the way people wanted to work at that time. And for 20 to 30 years, Office fit right in. Today, things are changing. More people collaborate on work as groups and teams, so Office 2016 represents the change from personal productivity to team productivity."

The new Excel offers a rich set of charting capabilities that make creating and customizing charts simpler and more intuitive. One part of the fluid new experience is the Formatting Task pane. - www.office.com/setup Until now, precise adjustments to chart elements were made in the Format dialog box. The box sometimes obscured a portion of the chart, changes entered in the box were not visible until you closed it, and you had to select the exact element on the chart in order to see the options that were the best fit for the job. In the new Excel, the Format dialog box is replaced by the Formatting Task pane. The pane aligns neatly with the right or left side of the screen, so it's less likely to obscure the chart, and changes happen in real time, so you can immediately see how your choices affect the chart. The Formatting Task pane also offers an element selector so you can jump quickly between different elements without having to select one to modify. The new Formatting Task pane is the single source for formatting-all of the different styling options are consolidated in one place. With this single task pane, you can modify not only charts, but also shapes and text in Excel. USING THE FORMATTING TASK PANE The fastest way to open the Formatting Task pane is to double-click a chart element. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+1 while a chart element is selected. There are two other ways to open the task pane: The first way: On a chart, select an element. On the Ribbon, select the Chart Tools Format tab, then click Format Selection. - www.office.com/setup The second way: On a chart, select an element. Right-click, then select Format where is the axis, series, legend, title, or area that was selected. - www.office.com/setup Once open, the Formatting Task pane remains available until you close it. Since it always stays on the right or left side of the screen, the pane remains unobtrusive as you concentrate on other tasks. The